


one is the loneliest number (two is a crowd)

by sassy_ninja



Series: unfinished stories [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Character Study, Depression, Forests, Kinda, Loss of Powers, Lovecraftian, M/M, Magical Realism, Mental Instability, Mermaid!Iwaizumi, Oikawa Tooru's Knee Injury, Reincarnation, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassy_ninja/pseuds/sassy_ninja
Summary: a series of unfinished stories of iwaizumi hajime and oikawa tooru mostly magical aus.feel free to use as prompts or jumping off pointstags updated as we go
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: unfinished stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1704415
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> soo I actually rlly like this au but idk I started writing it when I was in q a bad place and then got out of that and its still here so honestly idk what to do w it. I'm planning on posting a bunch of unfinished drafts and hopefully ill be motivated to continue them or someone else will see them and continue them! if u want to pls feel free bc I don't think ill finish this but pls link me and also send me a link bc I wanna read it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oikawa is just on his normal morning run when he sees something he shouldn't in the surf, something that shouldn't really exist. He carries a mermaid back to his apartment and puts it into his laptop, but some things are already too rotten to be saved. Oikawa falls and there is no one there to catch him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soo I actually rlly like this au but idk I started writing it when I was in q a bad place and then got out of that and its still here so honestly idk what to do w it. I'm planning on posting a bunch of unfinished drafts and hopefully ill be motivated to continue them or someone else will see them and continue them! if u want to pls feel free bc I don't think ill finish this but pls link me and also send me a link bc I wanna read it!

Oikawa runs along the beachfront, everything is stained with the grey filter of 4am twilight. It’s too early to be out, too early to be conscious, but there’s something always weighing on the back of his mind. He runs a little faster, maybe the weight of student loans and upcoming rent and the two jobs that he’s working will fall behind a little. It doesn’t, but he carries on running even though his knee burns with every step. He relishes it and pushes on.

The seafront is dirty today, driftwood and washed up pieces of plastic stain the sand as Oikawa runs past. There was a storm last night, all sorts of things brought to light that would rather sit in the depths of the ocean. When the dawn comes a whole army of volunteers will descend on the beach to start clearing up, but for now everything sits in a murky in-between, laid out for the world to see.

Up ahead there’s a swarm of gulls, he wrinkles his nose as he nears it, the cacophony of shrieking and infighting as they crowd around something, jostling for their position. Suddenly they explode outwards, screaming and wheeling away as whatever thing it writhes desperately in the sand. He sees something that almost looks like a flailing limb, but he’s not wearing his contacts and it could also just be a trailing piece of plastic or some seaweed. It makes him stop either way, his breath wheezing its way back into his lungs.

The sand is compact and hard as he picks his way towards the thing, seagulls skittering behind him as they creep their way back. It thrashes again, and he flinches, even through his blurry sight whatever’s moving looks human. Whatever it is, Oikawa is almost certain that’s an arm.

“Hey,” he shouts and his voice sounds too quiet and too loud in the grey air, under thrashing of the waves, “are you okay?”

There’s no reply, but the movement stills and the seagulls take this moment to dive back in, shrieking their war cries. Oikawa shouts again, waving his arms and running towards it. In the confusion birds dive up and swoop down, wings and their weird little feet slap against him. One of their sharp beaks scratches a thin line on arm and another gets itself tangled up in his hair, but he screws his eyes shut and flails around until all of them have settled a wary distance away. He peeks an eye open and slowly removes his arms from around his head.

The thing on the ground is – well it’s kinda human. The top half is definitely human at least, but the bottom half was a long slick tail, curled into a mess of driftwood and rubbish. It takes Oikawa a second longer to see the ragged gash curling from just above its hip to halfway down the tail. He gags just a little at the half-congealed blood still oozing out and briefly thanks the gods his parents never insisted on him pursuing medicine.

The creature twitches again and Oikawa skitters backwards alongside some of the bolder seagulls who had inched back in. It twists so Oikawa can see its face and he feels something move inside him. Its face isn’t particularly handsome, but there’s something about the way its eyes scrunch up slightly that compels him to do something. If that something is to carry a half-dead fishman across the twilight town then so be it.

It isn’t until he’s outside his flat, struggling with his keys and arms covered in dark blood and slime that he stops to think for a second. The fishman stirs and he pushes the thought to the back of his head.

He’s lucky that he has a big tub, one that’s deep enough to submerge Oikawa up to his chin when sitting up and long enough for him to lie down completely. It was useful for his ice baths after competitions or particularly hard training sessions and now it can mostly store one fishman (merman?). Oikawa dumps him in with little grace and starts filling it up.

It takes for the water to get around halfway up when he freezes, do fishmen need saltwater? He sprints into the kitchen and grabs the bag of salt in the back of his cupboard, the one Maki had bought when he thought Oikawa’s flat might be haunted. It stings a little to realise he hasn’t been back in almost a year. He dumps the salt in and carries on filling up the tub until the fishman is fully submerged, it sinks downwards, and its tail slowly slides up and curls back over.

When Oikawa manages to dig his glasses out of his bedside table he can see the gentle flutter of what he thinks are gills on its sides, underneath its ribs. He looks at himself in the mirror, half covered in blood, hair sticking up and clumped where he’s run his hands through it. It takes all his strength to look away, to ignore how his hands shake or how tired and skinny he looks.

He itches to smoke but he was planning on buying cigarettes on the way back from his run, he looks back at the tub, I mean he hit a little distraction. He knows smoking is bad for him but likes the way it burns his lungs, the way it hurts when he coughs. It gives him the same high as when he runs but he can’t hide the self-destruction.

He washes his hands, takes care to get the blood out from under his nails, can’t have his boss giving him worried looks at work again. The hollow cheeks and tired eyes do enough already.

Ask him a few years ago, ‘where do you think you’ll be in the future?’ and even in his worst nightmares he never would have said this. Alone, crumbling flat, friends who don’t even know what city he’s in anymore. He was the bright almost dream-boy, the volleyball athlete who never made it to nationals, going to Tokyo to study and never looking back at the washed-up town he came from. Until a few years later when he comes back with grey behind his eyes and one fewer functioning joints and a passion that has long run out of things to burn.

No one likes the brash countryside boy outside of movies, Tokyo had come along and thrown him back out and he here he is: no degree and still debt to pay. He rubs the dirt and blood off his face and wonders if he can afford to call in sick today to look after the fishman or if that will be the final straw to get him fired. He can’t risk that he decides and leaves the door to the bathroom open, a note written neatly on the toilet seat.

It’s only one shift but it leaves him feeling emptier than ever before. When his old neighbour comes in and asks him how he’s doing, how he’s coping but the _thing_ itself being left unsaid. No one ever talks about it directly, no one ever looks him in the eye. He walks home, remembers to buy a pack of cigarettes in the 7/11 and smokes one watching the volunteers working their way across the beach, walking straight past where he found the fishman this morning.

The apartment is dark when he comes back, clicking on the light to take off his shoes, but he hears something wet and slick skid across the floor and his throat closes up with fear for a second. What if it attacks him? What if it kills him? What if they leave his sister to find his body, slowly rotting and partially eaten with a dying fishman curled in his bathtub? He slowly inches forwards anyways, counting his steps as he walks to try calm himself down.

The floorboards creak and the sloshing sound stop dead. Oikawa can’t stop himself from shaking as he creeps forwards again.

“Hello?” he calls out quietly. He almost slaps himself at how stupid he sounds, just like he was in some cheesy horror movie, but he doesn’t quite know what else to do when he sees streaks of dark water lead into the bathroom. The door is open and he flicks on the light quickly, the floor is covered with murky looking water and inside the tub the creature hisses at him as it thrashes in the light.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he stumbles back out and closes the light again, “is this better? Was it too bright?” He doesn’t even know if it can understand him, but inside the splashing stops.

The light from the hallway seeps into the bathroom and he sees hands gripping the side of the bathtub, the merman peers out over the side, meeting his eyes for a flash before ducking back out of sight.

“I don’t know if you can understand me, I’m just rambling – shit,” he leans back against the wall and slowly sinks to the ground, “how did I even get here?”

The merman blows bubbles in the water and then peeks back over at Oikawa, it stuns him for a second, the intensity of his gaze. Makes him feel like just for a second he can’t even breathe.

“Where.”

He freezes, eyes wide. “You can speak? You can understand me?”

The merman struggles for a second, frown creasing its brows as its mouth opens and shuts soundlessly a few times. “Where am I?”

“You’re in Miyagi, Japan. I found you on the beach and I brought you home – I was, I don’t know – I was just scared. I thought if someone reported you then maybe the government would dissect you or something so I – I just put you in my bathtub.” When he says it out loud like that it kinda sounds stupid, but the merman just grunts and looks at him again, eyes flickering across his body.

“I am Iwaizumi,” he says, words slightly mangled together as he struggled to speak, “I need to heal. Then back to ocean.”

“Okay, okay that sounds good,” Oikawa nods, he can’t stop nodding. The water on the ground soaks into his trousers, but he can’t bring himself to move in case it startles the merman again, “I’m Oikawa, uh do you – d’you want anything to eat?”

Iwaizumi hesitates for a second and then simply says ‘fish’, before flopping back down into the tub where Oikawa can’t see him anymore. They’re lucky Oikawa went to the fish market the other day, he takes the cod from his fridge and brings it back to the bathroom.

“Fish,” he announces quietly and gently puts it down on the floor. Quick as a flash Iwaizumi grabs it and retreats into the darkness, but the sound of teeth ripping apart flesh makes Oikawa start shaking again. He slinks back to the kitchen to see what else he can make for dinner now that his fish is gone and manages to scrounge up some old rice and fries it with an egg. It’s not very filling, but it’s enough for now. He’ll need to go shopping again tomorrow, hopefully he’ll have enough money to buy fish again.

When he checks in on the merman again before going to sleep a lump of fish lands on the bathroom floor sending him skittering backwards again. “For you,” Iwaizumi grunts, Oikawa can just make out the glint of his eyes in the half darkness.

“Thank you,” he says, reaching in and taking it. Something about it compels him, he sits on the ground in the kitchen and cries over it as he eats it raw. It’s barely more than two bites but it tastes like kindness, it moves something in him he hasn’t felt for what feels like a year. Not since he last saw Maki, he thinks, that’s the last time he cried like this. It feels like something has cracked inside him and he doesn’t know if it’s good or bad yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw this is my outline for the rest of this story (suicide tw): oikawa ends up spiralling even more bc of iwaizumi but on the surface level he appears to be doing better. he's taking more hours at his job, working harder, talking to ppl, etc but in reality he's starving himself to feed him and spending all of his time at home w him. iwaizumi appears to warm up to him but never really understands the human concept of 'love', but is also fascinated by the idea of it bc it's something that doesn't rlly exist for mermaids. when iwaizumi is healed he needs to go back to the ocean but oikawa tries to stop him/delay it. iwaizumi starts getting sick and oikawa is clearly not coping well either and he gets fired from his job, etc so he finally takes him back to the sea but iwaizumi tells him theres a way for them to be together forever, but he has to let go of everything in his life. oikawa is scared and refuses, he lets him go. again it looks like he's doing better, he gets another job, he starts playing volleyball again recreationally, he's talking to his friends but he's lonely, inside he remains the same even though his actions have changed. he goes back to the beach at night and walks into the ocean where iwaizumi is waiting for him and he asks him to be together forever. then iwaizumi drowns/eats him and it remains unclear whether oikawa becomes a mermaid/joins him or if he's just dead.
> 
> oof anyways thats dark like I planned for this to be a whole extended metaphor for mental illness but also if u just wanna take the idea and run w it literally like pls feel free. idk this is just me setting my ideas free into the world pls do w them as u wish bc I rlly like this idea and it feels sad for it to be just sitting in my computer unread


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, Oikawa finds his way back to the forest where it all began, but there is something else calling him deeper inside. One of the Old Gods still lurks in the forest, something older than the mountains themselves that seems to be all too aware of the foolish little witch who has wandered their way inside. 
> 
> or
> 
> Oikawa makes tofu and Iwaizumi eats it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually had a lot more written for this but then my computer crashed and I ended up losing a huge chunk of it which made me rlly not want to rewrite that chunk bc I couldn't quite remember it and everything didn't feel as good as it did the first time esp bc I wanted there to be a lot of 'filler' moments where nothing is quite happening like a Ghibli movie but that also makes it v boring to rewrite just descriptions of plants and shit which sucks but oh well I gave up

The forest is dark and quiet when Tooru drives in for the first time. He’s been here before when he was barely more than a few months old, when his mother had come to take his grandmother with them back to Miyagi. One of the last people living in the village that edged the forest. He doesn’t remember anything from back then – of course not, no person would, yet the forest seems familiar when he peers out of his window, all overgrown and darkest green. He watches the square of blue sky retreat into obscurity in his rear-view mirror.

He drives slowly down the overgrown road, following its every twist with his entire car groaning as he goes. It’s impossible to get lost as long as you follow the road, the woman had said. Tooru prays that she’s right, it already feels like he’s been driving in here for years and there’s nothing else but pressing green in-front and behind him.

He bursts into a clearing that appears as suddenly as it does, like it had just materialised when he’d blinked his eyes. The car eases to a halt, his mouth wide as his eyes trace the trees up and up and up until it feels like they disappear somewhere and the sky begins. The clouds swim past the breach in the treetops, a blue paint stroke in the uniform green.

“That’s gonna be beautiful at night,” he mumbles, flinching slightly when one of the bushes to his left rustles violently. The forest runs deep, miles and miles of impenetrable wilderness all around him and for the first time Tooru feels a thrill of fear run through him. “Forest creature-san, will you keep me company?” He wonders if he’ll get used to the loneliness, or if it’ll feel just the same.

The cottage itself is small, tucked into the side of the clearing with its garden sprawling out to touch the edge of the trees. Its off-white walls remind him vaguely of slightly mouldy rice porridge. He grimaces as he eases the door open slowly, key stiff in the lock and a wave of musty air seeping out around him. The inside is a little less neglected than the outside, spiderwebs sitting low and heavy in the corners of the room and dust on every surface. A small bubble of panic rising in his chest at all the magic this will take to fix up, but then he closes his eyes, breathes.

This is just his next step, his next challenge. He needs this, more than anything. He knows in the sweetest parts of his soul that there’s something that sings for him here. This place may be empty, but he certainly doesn’t feel any lonelier than he did in Tokyo or Miyagi or anywhere else. It can’t be worse than last year, nothing could be, that truth filled him with just a little bit of hope.

His magic sings in his fingertips as he walks into the house, eager to get put to use again. He opens his eyes, stares around the dark little cottage, and grins.

( _The woman who sells him the house is kind, the type of old sweet grandma who lives on the outskirts of Tokyo and shows near-strangers, pictures of her grandchildren. She tells Tooru about how she’s been trying to sell the cottage for years now, even brutally cheap, she had almost given up hope someone would buy it before she died._

_She smiles at him, pinching his cheeks, “you’ll put this old woman’s heart at rest knowing that someone is willing to make that place a home again. It’s been in my family for generations, but all the grandchildren want to live in the big city. Young people these days aren’t all as smart as you.”_

_He laughs her off, insisting that if he’s ever in the area he’ll definitely give them a stern talking to about the merits of living in the countryside. She smiles and waves from her doorstep._

_“Careful Oikawa-san, my own grandmother said there are still Old Gods in that forest, it’s been untouched since men first came to this island.” She smiles, a little sadder, like she feels like she won’t ever see him again_

_“I’ll be careful, don’t worry,” he says, turning the words over and over in his head as he drives away.)_

“There are still Old Gods in this forest,” Tooru murmurs to himself over his cup of tea, as he stares out the window into the darkening forest, “I wonder if I’ll ever see one.”

The cleaning spells make his fingers tingle and they leave just the faintest smell of lavender around the room, it reminds him of home. It’s not enough, not nearly enough, there’s still too much stuff to possible clean not to mention the mess of boxes that he’s hauled in from the car, each carefully resized and stacked around the living room. But outside it’s already getting dark and his back aches from driving all day and all that careful magic strains him more than it really should. He swallows down bitter bile as he drains his cup. Don’t think about it, no use dwelling on the past.

He crawls onto the futon he had the foresight to set up on the floor, peeling off his clothes with a quiet sigh and dumping them on the still kinda dusty ground. For a moment he stares out into the darkness, eyes trying to make out shapes in pitch black. Outside he can almost sense someone there, but it feels safe, like someone is there watching over him rather than anything else. He sees a shadow by the window just before he falls asleep, hears a sound that feels like his name in the wind.

The next couple of days he doesn’t even have time to think about anything else apart from clean, unpack, clean, unpack. He locates the generator and the emergency generator, sets up the internet router without setting the house on fire, finds (and fixes) the hot water so he can finally wash off the sweat from the last couple of days. He huffs proudly at every little achievement, sending bright little trills of laughter into the quiet house.

The little cottage is finally beginning to feel like home when he finally unpacks every box and proudly hangs the last of his photos on the wall. Like for the first time in a few years Tooru has made something with his own two hands, his magic sings the perfect melody.

It’s just when he’s settling down for a night of quiet alien movies to celebrate, snuggled onto his sofa he hears that oh so familiar _tap, tap, tap_ on the windowpane. A fat crow caws outside his window, its beady black eyes staring at him as he pulls a face. The window flies open with a quick flick of his hand and he relishes its flinch just a little too much.

“I don’t suppose they could leave me alone forever, could they?” he sighs rolling his eyes when it just croaks out a laugh and perches on the end of the sofa. When it opens its beak again, instead of a caw out comes a deep scratchy voice: Irihata’s.

“Oikawa, I hope you have settled in well in your new home. The magic woven into the forest is certainly remarkable at keeping it hidden, I don’t doubt that is one of the things that drew you here.”

Tooru twitches to try and keep his face expressionless at how easily his old teacher figured him out, how transparent his own motivations were, fist clenching under the blankets.

“Apologies for this… untraditional messenger, the plants in that forest appear out of any witches’ control. But a message is a message. You have requested to begin taking commissions again, which the guild council has approved. You were always a member of this guild Oikawa, and you will remain that way no matter what the future holds. Aoba Johsai will always have room for you within its walls. I have heard from your mother that your condition has improved, I would rather have heard it directly from you, but I suppose you are no longer obligated to report to me. Anyways, I ramble on again. Take great care in that forest, it is one of the few places where the Old Gods are said to linger.”

He can’t help but shiver at another mention of the Old Gods, it’s something Irihata would always insist on teaching, no matter how other more modern guilds liked to scorn them.

( _Tooru is ten years old, standing with the salty wind whipping at his hair, ears straining to hear the lessons Irihata is teaching him. He wonders why his teacher chose somewhere so noisy to say this, when they had a perfectly good guild building where it’s warm and indoors and not windy at all. He’d never considered that there were things that other witches wouldn’t want him to learn at all._

_“They owned the land, the magic, the energy that flows in us and in everything,” he said, voice solemn, “we witches stole it from them. Do not forget their power, Oikawa. Even if they sleep for now, what was theirs will always return to them one day. One day they will return from the land of sleep and the age of humans will end, the age of witches will end with it.”_

_“Why did we take their magic? Isn’t that mean?” he frowns, staring into the foaming surf, “I would hate it if someone took my magic.”_

_“At first it wasn’t stolen, at first it was just humans befriending Gods before they were holy and in return they gave humans the gift of magic, the first witches. But humans forget quickly, our lives are so fickle and changing that promises were broken and we turned our friends into Gods, revered them, gave them the power they gave back to us, but we forgot that everything we find holy will inevitably fade.”_

_Tooru nods even though he doesn’t really understand, his hands itch desperately to pick up a crab that scuttles quickly across the sand. Irihata talks some more, something Tooru doesn’t hear about condemnation and sleep, before finally dismissing his student with a quick wave of his hand. He watches him scuttle across the beach, hands out in front of him and shrieking voice carried out to sea by the wind. The boy turns with the crab finally in his hands, as if he expected someone to be behind him._

_Irihata’s heart twists at that. Tooru always seemed to be looking over his shoulder, waiting for someone to be there. He wonders idly about what happened in his past life to warrant that brief flicker of confusion every time he turns around and there’s no one there.)_

“You are my greatest student Oikawa, no matter what other people say I will never be ashamed.”

Tooru stares into the trees, something aches deep in his chest. A few months ago even hearing this from his teacher would make him scoff, take it as a slap in the face, a lie. But now there’s something in him that’s settled a little more, that understands maybe people are not so cruel. Maybe, he muses, laughing to himself until a sharp pain in his hand shakes him from his thoughts.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” he hisses, rubbing at the red spot on his hand, “you’re all vicious little things, aren’t you?” The crow just glares straight back at him unmoving.

He stalks to one of the open boxes and digs around inside angrily until he finds what he needs. It’s a shiny little bead, something plastic and cheap, but the crow eyes it eagerly. It picks it up delicately in its beak and stares at him.

“I’ll send a message back,” the crow just blinks its beady little eyes and taps one of its feet on the table, “Irihata-sensei thank you for the message. I’m settling in well, my mother’s cleaning spells have more than come in handy-” he hesitates for a second, unsure of what to say, “-I – I’m more than thankful for your trust in me, I hope that I can live up to your expectations.”

The crow caws as best it can with the bead still in its mouth, before hopping back onto the windowsill and disappearing into the trees. As it flies away, he sees something flashing in the bushes and he hopes that the little bastard gets out of the forest safe.

In the morning he sits and sips his way through an entire pot of tea, building up the courage to finally get to work on the garden. His magic is working well, it’s bubbling under his skin again, eager to get let out. This will be good, this will be fine, he promises himself.

People never really expected this of him, thought of him as just another vapid city witch with dinky charms on key-chains and runes carved into pretty rings. No, that’s not Tooru at all (even if he likes his hair charms for when he’s in a rush in the morning), no this is where he belongs: hands buried in the dirt and magic flowing through his fingers. He watches the sprouts slowly push their way out of the earth, leaves gaping wide as they reach towards the sky. He can hear them singing, their first words joyous and quiet as their leaves darken and their stems straighten.

Around him the forest sings in a low harmony, for once Tooru is just silence in a symphony of noise. His plants sing of sunshine and boys with magic and the trees reply with a patient chorus, repeated steady over years and years.

A tomato plant reaches towards him as he shakes the loose dirt off his hands, “nuh uh, go back,” he scolds lightly, laughing when it curls back in on itself lightly, “tomatoes are always so attention seeking.”

The trees sigh and he whips around, that fucking voice. Even if it’s not saying a name he can recognise in this life he knows it’s calling him on. Further, deeper into the forest. The leaves shake in the breeze as he sits there, curiosity bright in his eyes and mind rushing through the possibilities. He shouldn’t be able to hear the trees speak without his hands in the earth, but it was there clear as if someone was standing right next to him. He’s heard them before, but only when the he’s just on the edge of sleep.

He’s about to say something in reply when he feels the soft touch of a tomato tendril brush against his hand again. “Go back, tomato-chan. Grow big and tall,” he tuts, curling it around a bamboo skewer in the soil. The tomatoes grow big and heavy, they should be ready to eat by tomorrow.

He stares back into the forest, eyes trying to find shapes in the darkness. There’s something there, he’s so definitely sure of it that it hurts, but his heart beats slow and steady in his chest like it’s calling for something he doesn’t understand. ‘Old Gods’, he remembers, and he wonders if they’re still here after all.

He touches his hand back to the earth, pushes his hand into the soil just so he can feel the earth breathe around him. There doesn’t feel like there’s anything around him, nothing that could call for him like that. An ant crawls around his wrist where it enters the dirt, antennae feeling the air, looking for something that’s not quite right yet.

Tooru pulls his hand out and shakes off the soil, he can’t hear the forest singing anymore but he knows it is, as surely as the next breath he takes.

“Whoever you are, please carry on calling for me. I’ll figure out who you are eventually,” he says to the empty forest before he goes back inside, eyes unfocused on the bushes by the trees. The wind blows a little harder in response and he closes the door quietly, humming a tune and wondering what he should cook for dinner.

A quick _click, click_ and a half-hearted song wakes him up the next morning, trying to run his fingers through his bedhead before he gets to the window. A bright-eyed little hummingbird thrums just outside the glass, beak tapping once again impatiently.

“Your majesty, to what do I owe the honour?” he purrs with only the slightest touch of sarcasm. The Fairy Queen can take it, he thinks, especially when she’s woken him up at five in the morning.

The hummingbird gives another tiny squeak and bursts into flames, shattering into ash on his nice new kitchen table and burning the insignia of the fairy queen onto the wood. He scowls as he picks up the tiny scroll that it left in its wake, leaving the squirming little chick to fend for itself. Fucking fairies, too goddamn flashy.

The potion request itself is just another usual, a sleepless dreaming draught for moonless nights. She says that the ones Tooru brews are a little gentler than anything anyone else does, he takes special pride in the fact that she swapped back to his from Kageyama’s as soon as he was available again.

“Tell her I’ll take the commission, usual payment on completion of the potion. I presume she’ll send another few of you to get it?” he takes pity on the poor thing (even though he still hates it for burning a hole onto his table) and summons just the slightest drop of honey for it to drink. It buzzes its little wings, shimmering red feathers already grown back and it taps the table with its beak as if in apology before buzzing out the still open window.

There’s a sigh suspended on his tongue, his magic is buzzing in his veins again, the earth magic he did yesterday only seemed to make his magic grow deeper. He supposes that he can’t hide forever, even in the depth of the forest, not that he really wanted to anyways. He’ll need to go forage a little, remembers hearing the staccato song of rose mushrooms yesterday, somewhere close by.

For now, he just busies himself setting out the rest of his potion making equipment, carefully checking if any of the glass has chips or blemishes. He hums as he works, all of his cushioning charms had worked perfectly. He grins, of course they had.

That noise again. This time he doesn’t jump, but he’s so sure it’s calling him even if the wind isn’t saying his name, he just knows. It’s calling something deeper than a name, deeper than this lifetime. It feels like it’s speaking to his soul. His hands are trembling where he’s holding a delicate glass beaker and he puts it down before he drops it.

What’s calling him? It’s in here, in this forest, he knows it. He stares out into the clearing and the blank wall of the forest waits for him, patiently, patiently, like it knows he’ll come. ‘Tomorrow’, he promises, ‘I’ll finally go into the forest.’

Tooru wakes up early, nervous energy buzzing through his veins. It’s not enough anymore, just waiting at the edges of the clearing and looking in, not now when he can hear it calling for him. Not now, no, not ever. It was never going to be enough just staying here.

A few hours in he’s pretty sure he has everything he needs, bag full of mushrooms and whatever other herbs and plants he can replant back in his little garden, saves him the effort of having to march around and look for them. His fingers are sore from the cold and the damp dirt that they’re covered in, maybe he’ll brew a poultice for them later.

He turns when he hears something in the bush behind him rumble, but it’s on him before he even has a chance to scream. A wolf, the largest wolf he’s ever seen, slams him down onto the earth, paws pressed against his shoulders. Its teeth are inches from his face, breathing dark ancient air down with its mouth bared in a growl so deep that it rumbles through his bones.

Yet he’s not afraid. Oikawa Tooru, the boy who cries at every horror movie, dead spider, cut and bruise lies on the ground, pressed beneath the body of a wolf larger than a horse and he just feels _safe_. The wolf hesitates, waiting for the scream that never comes. It doesn’t stop growling but retreats off Tooru with its heckles raised.

He sits up slowly, not breaking eye contact with the wolf as it growls again. Its fur is weirdly matted and it takes a second for him to see the mosses growing on its pelt, melding with its fur to create a mottled green-black carpet. But it doesn’t look dirty, not like it’s been rubbing itself on mossy logs or trees it just looks natural, like it grew out of the forest. By its paws spring roots start to grow, curling up around in the brightest green Tooru has ever seen. Overhead the birds seem to start singing louder, the undergrowth reaches towards the wolf, longing. The breath disappears in his lungs.

“The Old Gods,” he stutters out, “you’re the god of this forest.”

The wolf looks at him with the darkest eyes and rather than killing him for his insubordination makes a noise that almost sounds like a snort of laughter. As saying, of course I am, who else would I be?

Around them the wind starts chanting for Tooru again, that sound it makes that’s not quite his name and yet still calls for him.

“Have you been – are you the one calling for me?” he whispers.

The wolf tilts its head and closes its eyes for a second, before turning and disappearing into the undergrowth, leaving Tooru sitting on the mud like an idiot, staring into empty space. The only evidence it left behind are the patches of grass growing extra thick on the ground, small white flowers blooming and wilting in the seconds that pass.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he shakes his head, pressing on hand to his face in disbelief. He still isn’t scared; his hands still won’t shake. Somehow, he feels more at home than he’s been in a long while.

At night he still isn’t sure what to do, whether to tell anyone. He brews the potion with a drifting mind, magic singing in his veins stronger than he’s ever felt it before, makes the potion the softest milky opal that he’s ever seen. Tooru has never brewed a potion this well before, this is more than textbook, more than anything he’s seen before. He’s so sure that even Kageyama, even Irihata couldn’t have brewed something as potent as this.

Perhaps he should leave an offering, something to thank the Old Gods for no doubt blessing him with whatever magic he had today. He tends to his little garden in the dusk and the plants spring even more eagerly than usual to his touch.

He tries to google ‘what to leave as a sacrifice for the Old Gods’ and nothing useful comes up. There’re a few conspiracy theories written by people about if Old Gods still exist, a Reddit thread on whether the Old Gods or Night Dryads are more useful in some niche online fantasy RPG and one guy insisting that this squirrel in his back-garden was an Old God. He’s about to give up when he clicks on one final forum link, one of the conspiracy ones where a bunch of crazy people camp out in forests around the country trying to find Old Gods in ancient forests and lakes. He’s about to throw his phone across the room in despair when a post catches his eye.

**Listentothewind8 | posted 5 years ago:**

**Ok guys listen so I went to Yakushima a few years back with a friend, before I started hunting old gods. It was just some light camping and hiking in the forest so we brought some bentos. I know this is rambling but let me get to the point, we left our bags in-between the outside and inside layers of our tent with our bags, and we had some left over agadeshi tofu inside bento boxes. But basically, we woke up in the morning with our outside flap open and our tofu gone, but none of the rest of our food was taken! Just the tofu! Could have been some picky raccoons you say? But coming towards and away from our tent were these patches of super thick moss with plants and flowers growing in them, like footsteps. Crazy, huh! It’s currently still my only ever interaction with an old god, hope my luck changes in the future!**

**Hollyleafmagic | replied 5 years ago:**

**Wow that’s a great story I’ve always wanted to go to Yakushima I heard it’s a great hiking spot even if you don’t see anything there**

**Benbenben | replied 5 years ago:**

**the god there takes the form of a giant wolf so imagine that a huge wolf eating ur agadeshi tofu lol! would fucking love to see that**

**MysteriousGirl623 | replied 5 years ago:**

**When I went some local granny said that the god there went by the name ‘Iwaizumi’ and that he’s one of the oldest gods in Japan that’s still reportedly active. People are so obsessed with the owl and cat gods in Tokyo that they can’t appreciate anything else! We need more threads from places that actually have reported sightings everyone knows Tokyo is way too crowded for old gods anymore >:( **

Tooru scrolls through the rest of the thread where it slowly dissolves into petty internet bickering about the gods in Tokyo vs Miyagi and the significance of nearby witch populations. Normal people were so boring, he sighs, every witch knows that the Old Gods in Tokyo were still there or else there wouldn’t be such a big witch population. He’s never seen one before, but apparently Kuroo had seen a cat that made spring flowers grow through the cracks in the pavement.

It was a bit too late to make agadeshi tofu, but Tooru hopes that normal tofu will have to suffice for tonight. It’s still steaming when he carries a little plate outside and sets it down on the grass.

“An offering for you, uh, Iwaizumi-sama? For blessing me with your presence today,” he cringes a little at his own speech, “I hope you enjoy. I didn’t have enough time to make agadeshi tofu today, but I can make you some tomorrow?”

He scuttles back into the house, the forest whispering with his retreat. When he peers out of the window it goes silent again, mist creeping into the clearing as night settles into the forest. He falls sleeps a little nervously, but the sound of his not-quite-name soothes him for the whole night.

In the morning he sprints outside barefoot, bed hair still sticking up wildly and shivering a little, his old t-shirt doing nothing against the morning chill. The hems of his pyjama bottoms are damp with dew as he bends down to inspect the empty bowl. It could be just forest animals, a fox or a raccoon or rat, but he spies the tufts of long grass with wilting spring flowers growing from them, leading from and back into the forest. He shrieks with joy, jumping into the air and not even wincing when his feet land with a wet splat on the damp ground.

“Iwaizumi-sama if you think that was good then just you wait for my agadeshi tofu,” he crows, “my mama always told me it was better than my sister’s.”

The following month is bliss. Tooru starts growing soybeans in his garden so he can make the tofu fresh, they grow taller than anything else under his constant preening care. The fairy queen delights in his potion, sends another hummingbird bringing praise that he gleefully welcomes in even as it burns another mark onto his table.

He gets more requests, the praise of the fairy queen is something rare enough to draw curiosity. He starts leaving his windows open during the day as the spring starts slowly rolling into summer and various birds, insects, plants and animals shift their way inside with more and more complex potions.

He calls Makki and Mattsun again, his sister, his nephew, his mother. Even drives to the nearest town to collect some moonflower bulbs that he’d ordered and flirts with the woman running the local shop so much that he gets a free milk bread out of it. Even if he doesn’t see the old god any more than the footsteps leading out of and back into the forest and empty plates in the morning. Oikawa Tooru has a whole series of good days until he doesn’t anymore.

It’s in the middle of brewing something not particularly complex, just a tonic to help succulents grow in low light, but he feels it. His magic sputters to a halt in his veins, leaving the potion in his cauldron just a pot full of half boiled leaves and some crushed sunflower seeds. Something a child might make when playing at cooking. Tooru screams.

This shouldn’t be happening, can’t be happening. Not again, not again. But the magic disappears from his bloodstream and in its place panic rises. He throws the cauldron to the ground, spilling its contents and dousing the fire. The world feels like its spinning around him, all of a sudden his plants fall quiet, the charms lightening his hair fade.

It’s all out of tilt again, he feels like he’s sixteen and it’s happening for the first time. Just at the end of a lesson with Irihata and all of sudden the greatest witch in Miyagi’s protegee can’t even do a simple levitation spell.

“It was getting better, it was getting better,” he screams to the empty house, “this was supposed to help. This was supposed to make everything better.”

The forest, the time away, it was supposed to fix all of Tooru’s problems. It shouldn’t be happening again, it can’t be, he can’t be.

( _When Tooru turns twenty-two his magic disappearing had only happened once since that first fateful time and both times only lasted a day or two. This time he’s getting ready to sleep when the cup of water he’s floating across his Tokyo flat smashes against the ground._

_He shakes his head, cleans up the glass by hand and goes to sleep. His magic will come back the next day, or the next, or the next._

_A week later the rumours have already spread, Oikawa Tooru, one of Miyagi’s greatest witches has lost his magic, lost it all. He moves back home after a month, ‘I need to go back to look after my grandma,’ he says and no one believes him. There’s an emptiness in his veins, in his eyes, in his words that means no one wants to look at him for too long._ )

He’s barely more than twenty-four now and his magic has only been back for a couple of months. Moving back to Miyagi, locking himself in his room for hours and hours just staring at a leaf or twig or sheet of paper. Outside there were whispers of a curse, of how the magical world’s most charming witch was gone all of a sudden, no magic anymore. He spent the year with his grandma, tending to her as her memory faded to nothing, but in moments of lucidity she spoke about her childhood home, the forest, the magic that sat within untouched, untapped.

One night he woke up and her bed was empty, the door swinging open and for a second he sees a tiger’s stripes on the edge of the forest. The next day he starts looking online for houses to buy near Yakushima, three months later he’s sitting here, crumpled on the ground again, back to the start.

Tonight he doesn’t want to cook, it’s too similar to potion-making that it makes him want to curl up in a ball and cry, but his hands start going through the motions for agadeshi tofu without his permission. He places the bowl in the centre of the clearing like he always does, but instead of going back inside he hauls himself onto the roof, a bottle of sake by his side.

He laughs as he sits back, the moss dislodging by his feet to show bright blue ceramic tiles. Of course, of course his roof would be blue, no hiding reminders of what he could’ve been, should’ve been. The protegee of Seijoh, one of the greatest young witches in Japan. He takes a gulp and glowers into the darkness, other hand shredding some moss and throwing it off the roof.

The sky isn’t even clear tonight, clouds racing by too fast to leave proper slices of sky for Tooru to stargaze. He catches the north star, the big dipper, before they disappear behind clouds again. The moon slowly idling her way up into the crown of the sky. He’s so distracted that he doesn’t even see the wolf walk into the clearing until it calls for him, that sound that’s not his name.

He laughs in response, grinning harder at the affronted look on the God’s face. “You keep on calling me that, what does it mean?”

There’s no response, of course there isn’t. The wolf dips it’s head down and eats the tofu off the plate oh so daintily as flowers and mushrooms grow around its paws.

“D’you know why I’m cursed?” Tooru continues, if the wolf was happy to keep quiet then he could do with a one-sided conversation, “I swear I’m a good person, I didn’t hurt anyone. All I wanted to do was be good, be a good witch, a good son, a good friend. I couldn’t even do one of those things, you know?” The wolf stares back at him, ears twitching, letting him speak.

“Maybe I was a bit of a dickhead and I was way too mean to Tobio-chan, but I was just a kid, you know? I shouldn’t be punished for that, right? Did I do something bad in my past life?” At that the wolf flinches, eyes blinking slowly. “Iwaizumi-sama, can I call you Iwaizumi? I read somewhere online that’s your name, but it’s so fucking long I’ve started calling you Iwa-chan in my head. That’s cute, isn’t it? Iwa-chan-sama are you gonna punish me for being so rude? I’m just a lowly little mortal though, aren’t I? Shouldn’t be speaking like this to you, but who even cares at this point. Without my magic I’m just an ordinary person, I never learnt how to live without magic. There’s no point in living if I don’t have magic, is there?”

The wolf settles down on the ground, eyes never leaving Tooru’s. A small tree starts growing from where his stomach meets the ground, leaves opening wide and wriggling upwards as fast as they can.

“A lot of people probably thought I came here to kill myself,” he admits, “or to live as a hermit away from magic, so people wouldn’t recognise me, whisper about me.” He curls up tighter, arms hugging his knees to his chest. “My magic’s only been back for a few months, but I really thought it was getting better. All the rest, not straining myself. When I first saw you my magic – my magic was – it almost felt stronger than it did when I was sixteen. I thought maybe I could keep it this time.”

The wolf closes its eyes and snorts again, just like it did back when they’d first met, in the way that sounded almost like it was laughing. In response one of the trees on the outside of the clearing sighs and leans inwards, branches reaching down towards the wolf but never quite making it.

‘ _You’re not cursed’_

“So, you can speak,” Tooru replies, “are you the person always calling for me?”

The wolf cracks an eye open, _‘does it bother you? The forest calling for you? It’s been waiting for a very long time.’_

“Hmm, no it doesn’t bother me. It’s kinda soothing, hearing it all the time,” Tooru shrugs, taking another big swig, there’s a pleasant warm in his throat when he speaks, “it’s the only constant I’ve had in my life for the last couple of months.”

The trees shiver again, calling for him louder than ever before as the wind whips its way through the forest and into the clearing before whirling upwards, upwards, upwards towards the sky. He follows the leaves upwards, staring at the cold eye of the moon. It blinks as clouds cover it for a second, leaving Tooru’s face in shadow.

_‘It’s tiring to talk, I don’t do it often.’_ The wolf closes its other eyes again, nestling its nose between its paws and towards the earth, _‘but you talk to me often, I thought it would be polite to return the favour.’_

“Not to mention feed you every night,” Tooru crows, “can’t even spare a few words to praise my tofu? I work hard on it you know, Iwa-chan.”

The wolf stares at him, both eyes open for a second before closing them again with a small sigh. It makes Tooru feel bad for a second, how much this conversation looks like it’s draining him.

_‘Your tofu is very good, thank you for making it for me,_ ’ and then after a small pause, _‘don’t call me Iwa-chan.’_

“Why not, Iwa-chan? It’s a cute nickname,” Tooru whines, petulant like a child as he drums his heels on the roof.

_‘In the olden days I would smite you for such indolence,’_ Tooru just laughs in response, sticking his tongue out. Somewhere in the dull still sober part of his mind he wonders how far he can push this before he topples over the edge.

“The _olden days_ , Iwa-chan how old are you even? You sound like a grandpa.”

_‘I am as old as the mountains here, I was here since the first sapling, since long before humans appeared on any of these islands.’_

“Were you lonely before? Before people came here?” Tooru asks, eyes soft and serious in the darkness, “Was it just you here for thousands and thousands of years?”

_‘I was never lonely before. I was just a concept, I was the forest, the mountains, the wind. It was humanity that tied me to this form, gave me the name of god, made me a wolf where once I was nothing, everything all at once.’_ The wolf’s ear twitches and he lifts his head again, weary and slow, ‘ _I suppose you could say that in all these centuries, I’ve become lonely.”_

“If it’s so tiring to speak, then why’re you still talking? Just go back into the forest and sleep, Iwa-chan. I’ll still be here tomorrow,” Tooru promises, holding his palm to his chest.

The wolf stands, still graceful as it shakes out its mossy pelt, ‘b _e careful what you promise, this forest does not forget.’_

“Okay, Iwa-chan,” he calls as he slides his way off the roof, stumbling as he hits the ground, but before his face can hit the ground Iwaizumi is there, pushing him silently back to his feet. His fur is surprisingly soft, springy with moss, but still dry to the touch.

“Goodnight, Iwa-chan” Tooru calls after him as he vanishes back into the forest, darkness eating him away until there’s nothing left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soo my original plot: oikawa slowly befriends iwaizumi and they talk every night over oikawa's tofu and iwaizumi slowly gains strength (bc old gods gain power from being worshiped) and they become friends. one day iwaizumi takes oikawa to a pond deep inside the forest one that shows memories and they see a vision of two children playing. at one point one of the children gives the other a 'gift' (think glowing orb like howl's moving castle) which is magic and they begin to grow older until at one point one of the children (now adults) tells the other that he needs to leave the forest but that he'll come back. oikawa then recognises that these are iwaizumi's memories and the other boy is himself in a past life. he had left the forest and never come back in that lifetime. now iwaizumi has taken on his human form bc oikawa's recognition of the broken promise has given him enough strength to do so. oikawa's magic comes back and they have some sort of vaguely romantic relationship but then his sister gets into a car accident and he needs to leave the forest. he promises iwaizumi that he'll come back and he goes. when he leaves he forgets abt iwaizumi's existence (which is why original oikawa never comes back) and he doesn't come back for many years. eventually he does essentially come back as a very old man to die in the forest and iwaizumi is very weak/angry/resentful force. he wants to kill oikawa for breaking his promise again but when he tries to he finds that he can't do it. he just lays down with oikawa and they die together. and then like epilogue two mums talking abt their sons who r born a month apart.
> 
> again feel free to ignore this! if u want to use this as a prompt or finish it or whatever pls feel free! just link me and send me a link bc I wanna read!


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